The Paradox of the Individual Household Responsibility System in the Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau, China Camille Richard, Yan Zhaoli, and Du Guozhen
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The Paradox of the Individual Household Responsibility System in the Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau, China Camille Richard, Yan Zhaoli, and Du Guozhen Camille Richard is an independent consultant working primarily in the Tibetan plateau region. She previously was Rangeland Management Specialist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Nepal, where she coordinated the Regional Rangeland Program in five countries of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region. Yan Zhaoli is currently Rangeland Management Specialist at ICIMOD. She previously worked as Associate Researcher at Chengdu Institute of Biology where she conducted research on pastoral production systems and rangeland and wetland ecology. She coordinated the research program in Sichuan under the Regional Rangeland Program. Du Guozhen is professor of biology at Lanzhou University, Gansu, and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Arid Agro-ecology. He has done extensive ecological research in the alpine meadow ecosystem of southwestern Gansu and was a coordinating partner in the Regional Rangeland Program. Abstract—Grasslands of the Tibetan plateau are commonly believed to Introduction ____________________ be degrading as a result of unsustainable grazing practices. In response, the Grassland Law attempts to allocate grasslands based on the Individual Grasslands of the Tibetan plateau are extensive, covering 2 Household Responsibility System model that has worked in the agricultural an expanse of over 2.5 million km (Miller 1997). These cold areas of China. However, the actual tenure scenario in the rangelands of Tibet alpine rangelands extend from the moist sub-humid grasslands is not as open access as is commonly implied. Communal forms of pasture of the eastern plateau to the semi-arid alpine desert steppe in tenure and management (including village level and kin-group arrangements) are advantageous given the socio-economic and ecological context. This the west. These rangelands display a diverse array of plant and paper will review the inherent logic of opportunistic movement in these high wildlife species, and support a large livestock population (over altitude rangelands, the “rationale” for existing grassland policies, and the 40 million head) central to the livelihoods of people on the impacts of these policies in the Tibetan Plateau. It will then discuss models Tibetan Plateau. These ecosystems are extremely resilient, as for policy implementation that allow flexibility in legal tenure contract and management arrangements that better reflect the de facto common property evidenced by the rapid response of “degraded” rangelands to situation in these areas. These models reflect local interpretations of policy rainfall and fencing of wetland areas (Banks and others 2003, that promote more equitable resource rights within a common property regime Miller in press). rather than individual “usufruct” property rights as proposed in more strict Many claims have been made regarding overgrazing and interpretations of law. degradation particularly the perceived link between upper basin Keywords: grassland tenure, individual household responsibility, collective degradation and lower basin flooding, leading to a number of management , grassland policy policy initiatives in recent years, notably a timber ban through the upper Yangtse and Yellow river basins of China (Xie and others 2002) and enactment of environmental legislation that relocates pastoral populations out of upper watershed areas (Richard and Benjiao 2004). Several causes of degradation have been proposed, includ- Bedunah, Donald J., McArthur, E. Durant, and Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria, comps. ing: (1) a drying climate (Miehe 1988); (2) in-migration and Rangelands of Central Asia: Transformations, Issues, and Future Challenges, January 27, population increase (Miller in press); (3) increase in burrowing 2004; In conjunction with the 57th Annual Meeting for the Society for Range Manage- ment, Rangelands in Transition, Salt Lake City, Utah; January 24-30, 2004. Proceedings mammal populations due to ineffective control and rampant RMRS-P-39. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture. Forest Service, Rocky hunting of predators (Smith and Foggin 2000); (4) increasing Mountain Research Station. concentration of livestock near winter settlements (Wu 1997); USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-39. 2006 (5) reduced mobility due to restrictive pasture tenure (Rich- Study Sites _____________________ ard 2002, Yeh 2003); (6) breakdown of traditional regulatory mechanisms (Richard 2002); and; (7) lack of government Figure 1 shows the main counties in the Tibetan plateau of investment in rangeland and livestock marketing infrastruc- China where research studies have been conducted. Most of the ture (Miller 1997). All but the first are strongly influenced by sites are in the more humid eastern plateau of Sichuan, Gansu, policies. Yunnan and Qinghai provinces, situated at an average elevation Pastoralists of China have experienced a number of policy of approximately 3600 m, where carrying capacity is higher changes affecting how livestock were managed and marketed, than the more arid western plateau and where implementation and how pastures were distributed, although there were strong of the Grassland Law is further along. Dominated by alpine continuities in land management systems and herding tech- meadow species from the genera Elymus, Deschampsia and niques. (Miller in press, Williams 1996, Wu and Richard 1999). Kobresia, these grasslands are quite productive and may have With the advent of a new socialist regime in the early 1950’s, the highest stocking densities of any natural grassland in the livestock were redistributed among households to decrease the world, even though they are periodically subject to drought disparity between rich and poor. By the end of the 1950’s, the and heavy winter snow falls. commune system was in place in the eastern plateau, although We also include a case study from Naqu Prefecture, in the started later in the west. Livestock became the property of the northern Tibetan Autonomous Region. Here much of the collectives and remained this way until the early 1980’s, when grassland is situated at extremely high elevations (greater than economic reforms swept the nation. At this time, livestock were 4500 m), yet receives sufficient moisture to support an alpine again redistributed to individual households but rangelands meadow community. were still used communally. Over time, increasing human and livestock populations and redistributions of communal land Grassland Tenure and Management holdings due to administrative boundaries have led to conflicts over resource use (Yeh 2003) and to subsequent overgrazing, Arrangements __________________ a result of restricting movements as more and more households Table 1 provides a typology of tenure and management ar- have settled (Miller in press, Richard 2002). rangements that currently and potentially exist on the Tibetan To address perceived issues of rangeland degradation, the plateau. Tenure is distinguished from management as the right government of China, citing the success of reforms in the early to claim benefits from a particular resource or set of resources. 1980’s (specifically the Individual Household Responsibility Management refers to the ways a particular resource is main- System in cropping areas), formulated the Grassland Law tained. For example, each household may hold individual plots in the mid-1980’s and has been implementing it throughout of land for hay but choose to share labor to plant and plow, western China (Banks and others 2003, Thwaites and others yet harvest their own hay crops (individual tenure – collective 1998, Williams 1996, Wu 1997). Land contracts are granted management). This type of arrangement exists in an agro- to individual households as a long-term lease (50 years), re- pastoral village in Zhongdian County in northwest Yunnan newable provided that land management is satisfactory, while (Xie and others 2002). ownership of the land remains government property. The Arrangements range from individual household contracts, Chinese government justifies its policies due to the difficulty where land is individually managed (the upper left-hand corner in providing nomads with social services like education and of the matrix in table 1), to large-scale collective arrangements health care, and in responding to heavy snowfalls that have among contract holders across a landscape (bottom right). The historically led to livestock losses (Wu and Richard 1999). former is more suited to crop lands, small winter and spring However, implementation of the law is proving to be difficult pastures, and hay fields. Large scale collective arrangements in non-arable lands (Schwarzwalder and others 2004), particu- facilitate more effective protection and management of land- larly in remote landscapes such as the Tibetan Plateau that are scape amenities such as biodiversity or hydrological functions. socially and environmentally marginal. Tibetan rangelands are An example of such an initiative would involve agreements heterogeneous in terms of water and forage availability, and dis- whereby downstream users compensate upstream residents play typically non-equilibrium patterns (Miller in press), even for protecting their landscapes to reduce flooding incidences. in the more sub-humid alpine grasslands of the eastern Tibetan Such approaches have been tried elsewhere (Koch-Weser and plateau. The majority of locals